blog

This year we’ve been blessed with an unusually high number of good weather days – the sun has been working in overdrive to give us way more than the standard UK quota of 2 sunny days per year!

We decided to take full advantage of this by holding a BBQ at Greg’s house. A particularly mild and pleasant Monday was settled on and we made our way there in the afternoon. We started with a couple of rounds of telestrations – see if you can guess what is represented in Graeme’s picture below…

Lucy then took on the role of chef and cooked us up some delicious burgers, sausages, wings, halloumi and kebabs, plus Alice made some delicious piña coladas! Once we were all fed and watered we moved inside for some Singstar – classic hits enjoyed included Meatloaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and Anastacia’s “Left Outside Alone”.

We then moved on to the cardboard box game; players have to pick up an ever shrinking cereal box using only their mouth, while only touching the ground with their feet. Lucy and both Lauren’s managed to make it to the final round which involved picking up just a flat piece of card. The surprising flexibility of some office members made us suspect some people may have been practising over the weekend!

Lastly we enjoyed a game of sardines (we are grown ups, we swear!). We turned the lights off and shut the curtains, and one person went off to hide. The others then searched one by one and joined them in their hiding place. Lauren L found a particularly clever hiding place planking across the dining chairs under the table, while Graeme and Kim managed to hide undiscovered in Greg’s wardrobe for at least 10 minutes!

This June was a special month at Inertia – it marked one year since Gerard, our office bearded dragon came to join us!

This meant he got a shiny new UV lamp for his vivarium, and we thought it was a perfect time to give you a lizard update.

Gerard has grown quite considerably since we first brought him to his new home! Much like having a child, you don’t seem to notice him growing when you see him every day, but we’ve kept a growth chart for him (when he’ll permit us to measure him) and his tail is now almost as long as he was when we first got him!

Gerard definitely seems to have enjoyed his first year with us! He still loves his locusts but his favourite veggies are now the leafy ones – rocket and watercress! He’s currently going through his second shed with us, and recently received a new addition to his viv – a hidey cave! After a week or so of looking at the cave suspiciously, followed by a couple more of climbing on top of it (climbing is one of his favourite pastimes!) he finally decided to venture inside, and now regularly curls up for a nap when he gets exhausted from the daily rigours of lizarding.

The year has also offered opportunities to practice his jumping skills, and we’ve had a few near misses around the office! Luckily one of us has always managed to catch him before he could fall any great height. We’ve also managed to (mostly) avoid any stray locusts…

We’ve all grown quite attached to our smallest colleague, and he’s proven to be a unique and surprisingly endearing office pet! Here’s to another year (and many more) of beardie companionship!

Check out Gerard’s baby pics and see how much he’s grown here!

One sunny day in May, we decided that it was the perfect day to take a well earned break from our recent hard work (with the release of Jackpot Bingo and big updates to Cross-Stitch World) and take a trip to the beach!

Hunstanton (or Sunny Hunny as it’s known locally) is the closest beach to our office in Ely, so we took a drive and arrived just in time for lunch!

First off, we enjoyed some fish and chips while successfully thwarting several attempts of chip theft by a menacing gang of seagulls.

We then headed to an arcade, where we changed up our coins for 2ps and had a go at winning some prizes! No-one managed to hit the jackpot this time, but we did collect a fair few tokens to exchange for treats.

Next stop was a sweet shop where we stocked up on rock, candy and a marshmallow man on a stick for Lucy! This was followed by a pleasant stroll along the front back to the beach at Old Hunstanton, where we explored the sand, although no one was quite brave enough (or appropriately dressed!) to take a proper paddle. Alice and Lauren did explore some fairly deep puddles though!

After that it was time to head back to the office to finish off the day and shake the sand out of our shoes. It was a fun excursion, which we will repeat in the future – Graeme who was on his annual leave has made us promise to make sure he’s in the next time we go!

We’ve just launched our latest game, Jackpot Bingo! It’s a new casual, social bingo game and is available now to play on Facebook!

Grab your Bingo cards and join the fun! Jackpot Bingo features both US and UK style games, both are super easy and free to play.

Play and chat with hundreds of other people from around the world – make new friends and become a part of the community! Unlock colorful new daubers to mark your cards in style or treat your fellow players to a round of drinks to show your generosity.

There’s loads of rooms to choose from including free card rooms and high roller rooms with bigger payouts! You can relax in an automatic room or enjoy an exciting, fast-paced manual game. Play with up to 8 cards at once, with up to 6 prizes available per round! Jackpot Bingo also features special Jackpot rounds with mega prizes!

Play Jackpot Bingo today and become part of the community!

Head over to the game now to check it out You can also head over to the Jackpot Bingo Community Page on Facebook and like it, so that you can keep up to date with the latest news and offers from the game!

Play the game on Facebook here

Visit the Jackpot Bingo Community Page here

This week we had the awesome news that Facility 47 has been chosen as a winner in the Amazon UK Developer Spotlight!!

The UK Developer Spotlight is designed to show off great apps that were developed in the UK and is open to larger studios as well as indies like us! The initiative is editorial in nature, with the winners being selected by the Amazon team after a careful review.

If you don’t already know, Facility 47 is our most recent point and click adventure game. It is set in an isolated research facility in the depths of the Antarctic; players must solve puzzles and search for clues as they make their way round the facility and its surroundings, discovering the mysterious history of the facility.

We’re really proud of the game (if we do say so ourselves!) and hope that this win will help it reach new players who will hopefully enjoy it as much as the Amazon team!

If you haven’t already tried it out you can get Facility 47 on the Amazon Appstore. You can also find it on other platforms using the links below:

Facility 47 on the Apple App Store
Facility 47 on Google Play
Facility 47 for Windows PC

Or, if you need some more convincing you can check out the trailer.

 

This Christmas for our main annual social event, we decided to head to Center Parcs again – it was an easy choice after all the fun we had last year! This time we tried out Woburn Forest for something a bit different.

The weather was kind for us this year, turning slightly milder for the weekend we’d chosen. When we arrived the first priority was to enjoy some delicious pancakes at The Pancake House! We followed this with a visit to the Subtropical Swimming Paradise to check out the slides and discover one of our new favourites, the lazy river, complete with rubber rings!

This year we all decided to head to the Aqua Sana Spa on the Friday evening, and enjoyed a lot of relaxation. There were fire and ice rooms, an outdoor heated pool, rainforest showers and a very relaxing room called the ‘Salt Inhalation Room’ where Greg fell asleep, and had to be woken by the staff at the end of our session. We all left the spa feeling very chilled out and ready for some fun the next day!

Aqua Sana Woburn Forest, by Center Parcs – Shared under CC BY 3.0 license

On Saturday the braver ones of us decided to climb to the top of a tall pole and jump off, as part of the high ropes challenge!

We also had to balance up some poles with our eyes closed (and only a little cheating) and complete a vertical obstacle course. We tried out lots of other activities throughout the day too including archery, badminton, squash and table tennis.

Saturday evening meant time for a few drinks and some games – we started with Telestrations, our old favourite. Then we moved on to Quiplash, a fun game where you try and come up with the most amusing answer to fill in the blank – for example, “The worst thing for an evil witch to turn you into _____” for which we had the answer “The inside of a goat”. Finally we played the Hat Game (a mix of Articulate and Charades) – trying to describe the phrase “Is that a trowel in your lederhosen?” in one word proved quite tricky! We ended the evening by enjoying some music together and sharing some funny stories.

Sunday was a more relaxed day – thanks to a rather persistent cold that has been making its way round the office lately (don’t worry, we’re all better now!) we weren’t quite up to the fearless battle of hearts, minds and physical fitness that is the team challenge, so we opted for playing some pool, exploring the village (including the very peaceful nature area!) and dipping our toes into the pool again one last time.

In the evening we enjoyed a few games of Ten Pin Bowling – the victors were Greg, and Kieran (who pretended to have bad bowling skills and then swept in to overtake us all!). We accompanied this with Slush Puppies, because what’s a trip to the bowling alley without one! We then went to Huck’s American Bar and Grill for our big group meal.

By Monday we were worn out but contented, and it was time for one last bit of fun before we left for home – half of us tried out the adventure golf course while the others went next door for a horse riding session at Brook Stables. A fun end to a very enjoyable weekend and a great way to start the year 🙂

 

We have recently launched an all new game ‘Tile Twist World’!! A unique new Twist on Puzzle Games, available now on Facebook, Android, Kindle and iOS!

Twist interlocking shapes to reveal hundreds of stunning pictures in this unique new Puzzle Game! Featuring a myriad of intriguing tile shapes, all of which fit together perfectly to slowly reveal a hidden image as you solve the puzzle.

Tile Twist comes with a wonderful variety of puzzles, each containing a beautiful image – you can also create your very own puzzles from images and photos to share with friends!

Play Tile Twist World today and discover a unique new puzzling adventure!

Head over to the game now to check it out You can also head over to the Tile Twist Community Page on Facebook and like it, so that you can keep up to date with the latest news and offers from the game!

Play the game:

Facebook – https://apps.facebook.com/tile-twist-world/

Android – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details…

iOS – https://itunes.apple.com/…/app/tile-twist-world/id1182933103

Community Page – https://www.facebook.com/tiletwistworld

 

After a year of lots of hard work, including some great new features for Fishing World and the release of Tile Twist World, it was time to enjoy a little festive fun!

Shortly before Christmas we spent an afternoon enjoying some games in the office. We all got to open our gifts from our Secret Santas which included an awesome Harry Potter themed cushion for Alice, a book of pranks for Greg (which has put Graeme slightly on edge) and lots of very warm, cute and fluffy winter socks!

We then moved on to a den building contest – having been collecting boxes for several months in preparation, we split into two teams and each one raced to get the best boxes! We had half an hour to build the best den we could, before the den judge Richard graded them on stability, aesthetics and size.

It was a very close call, with both teams desperately vying for bonus points, but eventually the winner was decided – the Castle den!! You can check out both of our creations below.

Finally we settled down for the much anticipated ‘Graeme’s Christmas Quiz!’ This included a stat guessing round (did you know that, on average, 1000 people in the UK are injured by their own Christmas tree every year?!), some Christmas film acronyms, and the customary music guessing round. We also got to enjoy some delicious Biscoff cake courtesy of Lauren.

Keep an eye out for a blog on the second part of our Christmas fun, coming soon!!

Last week SyncDevelopHER held the 2nd Annual DevelopHER awards in Ipswich. Alice, one of our talented programming team members, was nominated for the Best Newcomer award and, we are very proud to say, won!!

Here’s Alice enjoying her trophy!


The DevelopHER Awards is a not for profit award ceremony that is designed to raise the profile of women in technology in East Anglia and in doing so, help encourage the next generation of women in tech by providing female role models.

Huge congratulations from all of us Alice, and thank you for being a wonderful member of our team!

 

This October we’ve had our helping of scary experiences!

Part way through the month we held our second Murder Mystery evening! Everyone took on a different character linked to the Heavy Metal band ‘Satanic Saints’, and we got together to investigate the murder of its lead singer Tarantula.

The night was led by Kim Detective Rachel Owens, and there were many suspects after Tarantula’s money, love or fame. Stoney Walker, the band’s bass guitarist, was an obvious suspect due to his paranoid delusions and obsessive behaviour. Other guests included Peaches Van Helden, Tarantula’s ‘porn star wife’; ‘The Skull’, an obsessed teenage fan; and Sabrina Hitchmen, a PA on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Lots of guesses were made but in the end it was revealed that the perpetrator was Rick Rocker, a roadie, who seemed to think singing classic rock hits to himself at random points throughout the night made him ‘down with the kids’ – he had been in love with Tarantula and murdered him after being rejected! We had lots of fun again and will definitely be having another Murder Mystery evening in the future.


Then came Halloween itself; the bar had been set high from last year’s costumes (see our blog about them here but there was definitely a good effort this time round too! Costumes included Ghostly Bride, Mad Scientist and a very creepy Red Riding Hood Wolf! We had fun confusing a woman who came to deliver a package, and our newest temporary staff member Lauren certainly had an interesting introduction when she came to visit before starting the following day.


And while Kim came dressed as Gerard, Gerard had his own Shark costume, courtesy of Lucy.

After a day of fun and games in the office, including our new favourite the Hat Game, we headed into Ely for a Ghost Walk. We got to hear lots of local tales of ghosts and ghoulies, and explored some of the most haunted areas of the city, still wearing our costumes of course; finally, we all headed home to scrub off the face paint and fake blood and enjoy our free sweets from the Ghost Walk!